Blogging Tenaciously Since 1998

Myspace makes friends out of everyone

Yeah, not so much.Yes, I have a Myspace page. I even jumpstarted my Facebook account recently, after Joe Grimm found it. And, yes, it has insidiously wormed its way into my life, along with checking my email, checking my website stats and looking through today’s L.A. blog posts. But honestly, I’m not interested in finding out how many “friends” I can connect with. I’m actually quite surprised with how many former high school mates have found me through it — especially considering how long I’ve been online with my own web real estate. Forget Google, Myspace was truly the people-connector this year.

But the sheer number of strangers asking to be my “friends” astounds me. Just this month, I got three friend requests from folks I have never heard of and can’t fathom any real life connection to. And its not like they’re guys — which, I suppose, I would understand a little better. These are girls. And they’re not ugly, looking-for-friends kind of girls. They seem to be attractive. So its not like they need any attention from me.

What is it about building and padding your “friends list” so that you have “friends” numbering in the thousands?

I remember when Friendster was the popular thing, too. (Yes, I have one of those too.) An old high school friend of mine, back when I was actually hanging out with them regularly, sneered at the whole Friendster concept when another friend brought it up. “It’s all just a popularity thing,” she said with her nose up in the air. Which, I suppose, is to say that she wasn’t garnering enough friends for her little Friendster page.